Is the .to (Tonga) domain completely rogue and should be removed?

Wed Sep 30 19:42:58 UTC 1998

I have two proposals:

1) Clearly, .COM is used for criminal and malicious activities.
   I propose that we remove it due to abuse.

2) Barry Shein serves no useful purpose and should also be removed.

Karl

>
>We've been having increasing problems with one or more porn sites in
>the .to domain promoting itself by massive spamming of AOL customers
>using one of our domains in their From: header thus causing both
>complaints to us and thousands of bounces from AOL due to bad AOL
>addresses in their spam lists.
>
>Looking at the .to domain I can't help but notice it's heavily laden
>with what appear to be porn sites (sexonline.to, come.to,
>xxxhardcore.to, etc.)
>
>1. Performing traceroutes and other analyses seems to indicate that
>this domain is NOT being used for communication with entities
>legitimately located (legally, not only geographically) within the
>sovereignty of the Kingdom of Tonga, as intended.
>
>2. Clearly criminal and malicious activites are arising from sites to
>which Tonga has provided comfort and sanctuary.
>
>3. Therefore, I call for a process whereby it can be determined as to
>whether or not it is appropriate to decommission the Tongan domain due
>to negligence, mismanagement, and having allowed it to become an
>attractive resource for criminal activities. I do not believe the
>Tongan domain serves any legitimate purpose as an internet resource.
>
>In support of this assertion I want to show you an SMTP conversation
>with what claims to be the Consulate of the Government of Tonga in San
>Francisco (This San Francisco office is listed as an official Tongan
>contact point for visas etc by the US State Dept):
>
>world% telnet sfconsulate.gov.to 25
>Trying 209.24.51.169...
>Connected to sfconsulate.gov.to.
>Escape character is '^]'.
>220 colo.to SMTP ready, Who are you gonna pretend to be today?
>VRFY postmaster
>500 Bloody Amateur! Proper forging of mail requires recognizable SMTP commands!
>
>--------------------
>
>Viewing the web page for the Tongan Consulate in the US
>(http://sfconsulate.gov.to) reveals nothing but an ad for a software
>company, this page ends with:
>
>   Need a domain name? Contact the Kingdom of Tonga Internet domain name
>                                 registry.
>
>--------------------
>
>Consequently, I assert there is no reason for this domain to exist and
>it should be removed from the root name servers.
>
>
>-- 
>        -Barry Shein
>
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